The saga of an alcohol-related crash that killed three people and prompted criminal charges against a midstate bar has ended with a final $40,000 settlement approved by a Dauphin County judge.

The settlement President Judge Todd A. Hoover sanctioned will resolve a lawsuit crash victim Roseanna L. Thompson's family filed four years ago against the owners of the Lamp Post Inn in Middletown.

Thompson, 22, of Elizabethtown, was the driver who caused the fatal accident after she left the bar on Nov. 16, 2007. The tavern's staff knew Thompson was intoxicated, but didn't prevent her from driving, her family said in the suit against the bar's owner, Head's Up Inc.

The Thompson lawsuit settlement was the last of three such accords reached with the families of those killed in the crash. The other cases were settled for $50,000 each, due to issues regarding limitations on the bar's insurance coverage, the Thompson family's lawyer, Roger Laguna, said in court filings.

The head-on crash that killed Thompson also killed Crystal Rudy, 21, of Lancaster, the driver of the car Thompson hit on Middletown Road in Derry Township, and Rudy's 21-year-old passenger, Morgan Long of Elizabethtown.

Investigators said Thompson was kicked out of the bar not long before the crash because she was being unruly. The grand jury concluded that she had been served alcohol even though she was visibly drunk - a violation of state law- and that a bouncer helped her find her car in the parking lot.

Police determined that Thompson's blood-alcohol level at the time of the crash was .197 percent, more than twice the limit at which a motorist is considered too drunk to drive.

The settlement Hoover approved to end the Thompson suit calls for $15,647 to be invested for her minor son. Another $8,000 will go to Thompson's husband, $8,235 will pay for her funeral and Laguna's firm, which pared its fee to 20 percent of the settlement, is to receive $9,118 in fees and reimbursements.

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